This invention relates to network test and measurement, and more particularly to an apparatus and method of determining end-user response time in network operation.
In installation, operation and maintenance of networks, determination of where issues or problem points arise can be complex. A network engineer or technician looking to resolve problems would be interested in determining the timing of interaction of clients on the network with a server, to help determine where problems might be occurring.
Applications that are request/response based, but do not use TCP as the transport protocol, are susceptible to issues with application, server, and/or network responsiveness in similar ways as applications that use TCP as the transport protocol.
However, heretofore, measurement of client/server response time for non-TCP protocols was not available. The TCP protocol provides reliability of data transfer and therefore request/response determination and specifically the beginning and end of the request/response can be determined based on the transport protocol. There are limitations in this regard with a non-TCP transport protocol.
Being able to determine the timing of interaction of clients on the network with a server would be helpful when troubleshooting network problems.